her able hands

Look at what I get to play in today!

I ran home at lunchtime yesterday to pay the guy from the horse farm. He interrupted what sounded like an incredibly busy day, to load up ten scoops of aged horse manure in his hydraulic lift trailer. I ordered five scoops each of five year-old and three year-old manure, mixed. It was so heavy after the rains of last week, that his lift stopped about halfway up and wouldn’t budge. He had to drive forward on the lawn and then backwards and slam on the brakes several times to get the load to shift. When it tumbled out onto the grass, it glinted with wet, wriggling strands of red. Thousands of red worms. I plan to dig a bunch of them out of the pile and put them in a bin under the rabbit’s cage.

I’ve been wanting to try vermicomposting for years and find a better way to utilize the millions of dry pellets Charles the Female Rabbit litters the cage and its surrounding area with. Now I have no excuse, the worms are just hanging out there in the pile waiting for something exciting to do! What could be more exciting than eating ones way through a bucket of rabbit crap and soiled straw to make black gold? Nothing, I tell you. Though, I’m glad I don’t have to do it.

So isn’t the pile just gorgeous? He said it weighed about 3 tons (which explains the torn up lawn that I later had to explain to Chris). So today’s plan is to use the manure to:

• Mulch Asparagus beds
• Side-dress and work into the soil for the Potatoes and Raspberries
• Build lasagna beds inside my hinged wood frames for quick and dirty cold frames to plant lettuces and spinach.

The weather forecast changed. I could see that by looking out the window, of course, but checked online anyway, and sure enough, the sunny, clear and 68* is now mostly cloudy with a 40% chance of rain for the day. Oh well.

Tomorrow’s a whole ‘nother day, but I’m not going to look that far ahead yet. I’m toying with the idea of taking the dining room chairs outside to strip them. I picked up my special-order fabric from Jo-Ann’s yesterday, and I’d love to get them done before the end of the month. If I do, I’ll post a photo of the fabric. I’m in love, and can’t wait to paint the dining room and kitchen to complement it, I’m thinking a dusty gray-sage.

Oh, also? Check out my next column at 100Hats, about eating local. I have so much more I want to write about food supply and local economies, health and security, but this is about all I could squeeze into a 500 word column. Don’t you hate when you write something and then read it a few weeks later and realize you could have said so much more with so many less words? Me too.

*I have to watch my language on this blog now or I can’t check it at work because of blocks they put on internet use with banned words. Also, I’m trying to clean up my act around here, but old habits die hard. It’s a B*tch.

Technorati Tags: manure, compost, vermicompost, garden, organic gardening

Bookmark It